Howard Frank
October 2025 - Untitled
About the Image(s)
Smelling the flowers
This young Orangutan has just been introduced to its new outdoor enclosure at one of our local zoos. Because they were never outside before, it took a few weeks before they would come out. Then at first, they would only hang on the fence because they had never been on real grass and dirt. Taken with my Nikon Z8 and 100 to 400 lens at 1/1600 sec, F/5 and ISO 320. Processed with Lightroom and DXO Deep Prime.
Howard
1 comment posted
(Groups 5 & 6)
I love the backstory! The sense of wonder on the young ape's face fits the history.
The light doesn't work in your favor here, you have some bright highlights in the grass and more toubling, OOF white flowers on our right. I believe you can help this by further reducing your highlights in the BG and also reducing slightly your Green saturation.
I wonder if you have a few frames that don't have grass crossing the eyes of your subject?
As far as competition, that will depend on whether your judges have genuine interest in Nature. I feel there is enough of a story here, but given that you are competing against lions on kills and mating hyenas, it's a tough go for a calm, enchanting image like this one.
Lillian Posted: 10/13/2025 14:06:59
The light doesn't work in your favor here, you have some bright highlights in the grass and more toubling, OOF white flowers on our right. I believe you can help this by further reducing your highlights in the BG and also reducing slightly your Green saturation.
I wonder if you have a few frames that don't have grass crossing the eyes of your subject?
As far as competition, that will depend on whether your judges have genuine interest in Nature. I feel there is enough of a story here, but given that you are competing against lions on kills and mating hyenas, it's a tough go for a calm, enchanting image like this one.
Lillian Posted: 10/13/2025 14:06:59